A Daughter of the American (Psycho) Revolution, via the Lineage of Marion Crane

Summary:

Notes:

I was so chuffed to see this as a listed fandom, I knew I'd definitely want to write it as a treat. And your idea about 'the sexily dressed sorority girl who always has to die in horror movies' stuck in my head, so here she is!

Work Text:

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A short list of facts about myeven shorter life:

1.

I grew up in a picket-fenced house, white, barefoot on the lawn,never out of sight of caring eyes. Never been book smart.The arts of word and figure whip at the skin, and sinkonly so far as to bring no pain to idle fingers grown too old,too prone to think, too savvy for spindle’s certainty.

But who needs the gentle spinning ofminds upon themselves?

Not this unshod heedless girl growing like dandelions, softtoward sunshine, held aloft. Not this fleet and fatedcanary in the mine -- golden-tressed -- all the betterto be stroked with a finger. Dressed, but not to kill.All the better to cry out, high and sweet:danger, danger!

2.

I have three brothers who will, no doubt, be fathers togirls, worth only the price of their faces. Climb backinto the foliage of my family tree; unpack the myth.Look for the dead-end branches, the leaves that fellprematurely brown, the senseless summer deaths,force-pruned. Name every wound. Let the men live onto tell the stories, drop tears like leaves; the girls,like me, forewarned. Always avenged but never mourned.

The ghosts of my sisters are tangled like twigs in my hair.

3.

According to my mother, bad things will happen if sexis not the enemy--the bogeyman--the thing that appearswhen you call his warm and salty name too many times.But I've made friends with sex, shaken his hand, slicked my ownalong my slit. Gone postal, gone on heat, gone to bedwith whomever I pleased.

(Less for innocence and more for the sweat of my fear:transforming, transparent. Red on green will not show upin black and white.)

5.

A certain type of beauty is said to invite the eyes andalso the empty sockets of Death to take a peek.Fairest of them all; so very fair that one can seemy veins beneath the skin. My bones lieclose to the surface and suck at the air, asking to be freedfrom the unnatural shocks of flesh. My thousandsand thousands of cells clang shut and count the hours.

Even Death can’t make up his mind how he wants me:bent over the bed, in the sudsy tub, skewered,done like a dog. Heated up and eaten outlike the missionaries, chained at hand and foot.Choked and breathless to the end. Pale skinexposed and peeled right back, gin-drunk paintedJezebel rose, oyster tongued and eagerlyspreadeagled. Passive, perfect; naked in the shower,screaming my way at the top of my lungstoward a little death. Reverse cowgirl with blood on her neck--erchief. Miss Scarlet Woman in the library, with the rope.

Bad things happen to girls who want too much.

7.

There is no point to me if I don’t die young;after all, what could I possibly grow up to be?

I might have grown, up and ever up toward the sun,into a person who was something more than this:useless in a crisis (loses her head),but good for a grope, canary trope,screaming--screaming--screaming--dead.